463. Mad Elections (Part 1)

Is everything ready? said the honourable Samuel Sumkey from Mr. Perker. Everything my dear sir was a little man's reply.

Nothing has been omitted I hope. Said the honourable Samuel Sumkey. I think it's been left undone my dear sir. Nothing whatever.

There are twenty washed men at the street door for you to shake hands with, and six children in arms that you ought to pat on the edge and inquire the age of. Be particular about the children my dear sir. It always has a great effect that sort of thing. I'll take care.

Said the honourable Samuel Sumkey. And perhaps my dear sir, said the cautious little man. Perhaps if you could, I don't mean to say it's indispensable, but if you could manage to kiss one of them, it would produce a very great impression on the crowd. Wouldn't it have as good an effect of the proposal or seconder did that?

Said the honourable Samuel Sumkey. Why, I'm afraid it wouldn't reply the agent. If it were done by yourself, my dear sir, I think it would make you very popular. Very well.

Said the honourable Samuel Sumkey. With a resigned air. Then it must be done. That's all.

Arrange the procession. cried the twenty committee men. There was a moment of awful suspense as the procession waited for the honourable Samuel Sumkey to step out his carriage. Suddenly the crowd set up a great cheering.

He'd come out! Said the little Mr. Perker. Greatly excited.

The more so as their position did not enable them to see what was going forward. Another cheer, much louder. Eeyer shake hands with the men. cried the little agent.

Another cheer, far more vehement. He has patted the babes on the aid. Said Mr. Perker, trembling with anxiety.

A roar of applause, rent the air. He's kissed one of them. exclaimed a delighted little man. A second roar.

He's kissed another. Gasp the excited manager. A third roar. He's kissing them all.

Screamed at the enthusiastic little gentleman and hailed by the deafening shouts of the multitude. The procession moved on. So, don't worry, that was the pickwick papers by Charles Dickens, which he wrote in 1836. So, that is four years after the Great Reform Bill had widened the franchise.

That is a description of an election in the East Anglion town of Eton Swill, which is very Dickensian name. I think it's based on Barry St Edmunds and Dickinson's self-being a parliamentary reporter and all through his life. He never stinted, basically, in his contempt, politicians, MPs, parliament, elections. I guess that in that way he stands a tradition that's still going strong today because here we are in the midst of a parliamentary election.

We thought it would be fun to look at the history of election campaigns, didn't we? So, the honourable Samuel Sumke sounds like a much more natural campaigner than Rishi Sunakkaw Gizan. So, he's a bit hesitant about the baby kissing at first, but then he's clearly thrown himself into it. Oh, completely.

So, he's the Tory, he's up against the Liberal. And he wins. Does he? Does Samuel Sumke win?

Yeah, he does win. Who's Mr Pickwick favouring in this Samuel Sumke? I think they can't decide. They favouring whichever party of supporters they mix up with because the supporters are quite violent.

Of course they are, which is basically the theme of today's episode. It is a theme of today's episode. Yeah, because elections were so, I mean, in Dickens's time, elections were so colourful and the pickwick paper is probably my famous description of an election. That's sort of carnivalesque.

There's booze, there's ribbons, there's crowds, there's babies. It's like a huge public event and great excitement and it's very fun. I think it's much more fun than a modern election, don't you? I mean, there is an element of management, but it's not as land as a modern election.

I mean, the electorate is smaller, even with the Great Reform Act, which widens the franchise. And so that means they can be much more targeted bribery. They can. Yeah.

So, I think if you're a voter, that must make it more fun. There's bribery, there's enormous hoodiganism, which we're getting stuck into. Lots of beer. Yeah.

And there's also people being shot in the face. Okay, that's less fun if you get shot in the face. That's right. But we're going to be getting on to that in due course.

So, we thought we'd do this episode about the sort of the riotous history of general elections. So, general elections in the more distant past and then we'll do one on more recent elections. So, today's is the deep history. The deep history.

So, you know, the first elections are actually quite old. So, the first parliament, people, when they talk about parliament, they say, well, the first parliament was 1236, 1237. But there's no commons in that parliament. So, that's basically a gathering of barons approving taxes.

You probably get the first elections as early as 1265. And actually, this is, it's called Simon de Montfort's parliament. So, Simon de Montfort's the kind of over mighty baron who challenges Henry III. He ends up castrated.

Yes, he does. It's good to get that in early. He basically summons a parliament, a big council of people to approve his policies and the parliament is where people talk, ballet. Yes, exactly.

And he's unusual. He gets an ability in the churchmen, but he also gets Virgises. So, basically, town bigwigs, but commoners, from all the major towns. So, York and Lincoln and so on and summons them to London.

And we don't know how they were chosen, but they were chosen somehow. Now, it wasn't democratic and there probably wasn't a contest because they were basically chosen because they would do Simon de Montfort's bidding. But that principle of, you know, the major town, people will actually choose somebody to represent them in London and agree to taxes. And even then it's about taxes, right?

It's always about taxes. So, that's why when we did our series on the American Revolution, that's at the heart of the American Revolution. So, on the one hand, you have people who say, listen, parliament has always had the right to levy taxes. That is one of the cornerstones, if you can have multiple cornerstones of the English constitution.

And on the other hand, you have the American Revolution who say, hey, but the point is that the town sends somebody to parliament and we haven't sent anybody. No taxation without representation. Exactly. So, taxation is always there, but this idea that people will be chosen somehow in some obscure way.

And actually, the truth of it is that from that point onwards, all the way through to, let's say, the dawn of political parties. So, that's the brain of Charles II and then his successors, the weeks and the Tories. So, in that intervening period, which is what? 400 years or so?

We don't actually really know how people were chosen. It's very confused. It's very mysterious. Basically, what will happen is every now and again, the king will send a writ to two different places to the counties and to the boroughs.

And he'll say, I want you to send two MPs to parliament and how they choose them. There's no law, that there's no set rules. So, it's basically local custom that determines it. And actually, you would think that people are always saying, oh, let's have open contests, that's more and more people choosing.

But no, not at all. The gist of it is, people say, well, too many people are choosing. I was just thinking about that. The idea that shrinking the electorate is democratic.

This is my policy. But if you think today, there's kind of arguments about how party leaders are chosen. Yeah. And at the moment, it's party members and it's not the MPs.

And there's a real movement to say, actually, it should just be MPs, because party members are all mad by definition, because they're party members. Yeah, who joins the political party? So, they shouldn't be allowed anyway near a lecture. Exactly.

So, it's a bit like that, isn't it? It is a bit. So, in 1429, I read there's a brilliant essay on this by a guy called Neil Johnson from the House of Commons Library. And he says, in 1429, the commons actually presented a petition to the king to king Henry VI.

And they said, an excessive number of people who decide to do the MPs are, and the greater part of these people are people of little or no means. And these people pretend to have an equivalent voice as the most worthy knights or as choirs dwelling in the same gams. In other words, like upstarts, people have no consequence, Tom. Yeah.

Well, do you know, Dominic, whenever I read about kind of medieval or early modern elections, I would say they sound much more fun and that we should go back to organizing like that. Definitely much better. So, there's sort of emerges a consensus that basically you don't get to vote really, unless you own a freehold. So, you have property worth 40 shillings or more in land in a particular place.

And don't it, that might mean that a woman could vote. Right. Well, this is a fascinating thing. So, under the Tudors and the Stuart, it is perfectly possible.

We don't know for sure, but it is possible that women could have voted. I think it's generally held to be likely, isn't it? Yeah. I think because, for example, if you have a rich widow who owns property, it is perfectly possible that she could have voted.

And some people think, well, maybe the way it worked was, you know, in places where people were suspicious of a woman voting, she would take a lodger and basically he would vote for her or she would lend her vote to somebody in some way. So, there's that. So, first of all, it's not certain that it was actually just men. So, you've got two kinds of seats, counties and boroughs.

In the counties, we've said you have to have property worth 40 shillings. Now, in a borough, it is totally random. So, that's basically a town. It's completely mad and random.

Well, as someone from Salisbury, Serum, new Serum, but we have old Serum outside it. It's the most famous of all rotten boroughs. Well, we'll get to what's in the second. Oh, sorry, I don't think the gun here.

That's all right. But it's my favourite excitement that the factory is going to feature it. I know you love Wilshire and Salisbury area generally. It's just about that.

So, here are some fun complications. So, first of all, the boroughs are called Scott and Lot boroughs. So, Tom, this is a borough where you're liable to a scot of a lot. I think that clarifies.

Of course. That clarifies things. Okay, what does that mean? So, a scot is like a payment and a lot is a share.

So, it's not if you keep a scot some. No, this is a very bad thing. It's a lot of a lot. Because it means you have to pay a share of the local church and poor relief tax rates.

So, then you get to vote. I wouldn't mind doing that. Compassionate person. Then there's a pot wall above a borough.

Right. And a pot wall above a borough. Your householder. You're not on welfare.

You're not on benefits. They make any claim of poor relief. And you have your own half on which you can wall up a pot. And that means the boiler pot.

So, you have to wall up a pot. It's this kind of part of the ritual, part of the election. You get out your pot and wall up it. You have to demonstrate.

Then you can boil a kettle. Yeah, exactly. Then, slightly more boringly, this corporation boroughs. So, this basically is very corrupt.

This is where the corporation of a town, the people who are basically the town council or whatever, they choose the MPs and they can give no consideration whatsoever to the residents. And there, the corporation is self-sustaining. So, in other words, it's like a closed oligarchy. When somebody dies or whatever, the corporation effectively chooses who replaces them.

So, if you have somewhere like the good example is Tivoten, it's Devin, isn't it? Yeah, it isn't Devin. So, there before the great reform act that you mentioned at the beginning, there were 10,000 residents, but only 25 of them vote and they were the corporation. And basically, the corporation usually did the bidding of the local landowner.

So, that's a corporation borough. And then my favorite of all these complicated things is the Faket vote. So, this will be of interest for our American listeners. It definitely will be.

So, the Faket vote, basically what happens there is you, Tom Holland, own a 40-chilling freehold. You own some land in Wiltshire, let's say, right? You know, you're rewilding some land in Wiltshire, for example. And that will give you a vote.

Now, you might subdivide your land up into parcels and sell them off and say these are all 40-chilling freeholds. But you would basically do a deal with the people who buy them. You're creating more voters, but they will vote as you instruct them. Brilliant.

I'm all in favor of that. So, that was outlawed by the splitting act of 60 and 96. But people ignore that and carry it on, creating Faket voters. Woke-tosh.

That's the bulldog spirit, exactly. So, this is the kind of stuff that maybe reform could bring back in. Right. Yes.

Probably turn the clock back to a more organic voting system that better reflects the sensibilities of the British people. The organic traditions of the mother of parliament. Exactly. But also just to ask, don't Oxford and Cambridge have MPs as well?

Yes, they do. They're the only ones. Only universities. But that goes right the way up to the 20th century.

Yes. So, the second one, we'll worry about some of the Oxford and Cambridge enemies. I mean, that is mad. Now, you mentioned Rotten Burras and old Serum.

Yeah. So, for people who don't know, what is old Serum? So, old Serum is an NHL fort, and then it became a Roman town, and then it became an Anglo-Saxon centre for money as, so, coining, and then it became a Norman Serum hold. Yeah.

And they built the first Alsarica Cathedral there, but it wasn't very convenient because it didn't have water supply. So, basically, there were limitations to how larger could grow. And so, they moved down to where the cathedral currently stands, the new cathedral. Yeah.

And old Serum was kind of left as a historical antiquity. So, Constable famously painted it. So, it's basically like a dead town, like a ghost town, almost. It's not even that.

It's nothing that. Yeah, there's very little there. I mean, it's kind of chunks of castle or whatever, but the cathedral has completely vanished. You can just see the outline.

Yeah. It's fabulous. So, old Serum, when it was a thing, old Serum had been given the right to send two MPs to Parliament in 1295. But obviously, it declines and declines and declines.

But when you've got that right, you never lose it. Right. So, basically, there's nobody living there, but they're still sending two MPs. And this is obviously demented.

But you can't change it. Well, you say that. But why do you hate Britain, Dominic? Yeah.

So, it's a wonderful description of the election in 1802. The election was held in a booth in a cornfield under a tree, which marked the former boundary of the town. This is everything about Mary England. And I'm amazed you're against it.

And the source says, not a vestige of which the town has been standing in the memory of man being now without a dwelling for a human being. So, there are five electors. They are the Reverend Dr. Skinner, the Reverend Mr.

William Dyke, Mr. Massey, Mr. Brunston. The Reverend Skinner nominates two potential MPs.

And he says, their conduct will give satisfaction to honour to their constituents who don't really exist. Well, the five of them do. Now, the other electors agree to this. The other four people, they say, brilliant, let's send these two guys and they get to MPs.

This is an an era when Manchester has no MPs at all. Yeah. Well, I think sensible policies for a happy Britain. Now, this election, which is very pick-wickian, very Dickensian, this was actually been controlled.

It had been bought by the Earl of Callidam. He had bought the land and basically he had installed the electors. And he is supposed to have paid £60,000 for it. And that's the equivalent of a check to their website measuring work, which is kind of academic calculator.

That's the equivalent of about £80 million today. So, in other words, he's a super rich magnet who has paid £80 million for two MPs. Now, he has them in his pocket. No, he has them in his pocket, exactly.

But I mean, obviously, our subject is elections. There are lots of proper elections because at the point where you get party politics, so the wigs and the Tories, and we can go on to talk a little bit about what the wigs and the Tories are, there are probably about 200,000 people who can vote. So, there are 200,000 of these free holders and whatnot. And there's a brilliant, brilliant online project done by the University of Newcastle on 18th century political culture.

And there's an opening essay by Dr Hillary Berloch, which lays out exactly how an 18th century or late 17th century election would work. So, basically, Parliament has dissolved and the law chancellor sends out writs for a new Parliament. And it's a very sort of chaotic and confused picture because the elections are decided kind of locally and they can happen at different times. And often they can happen over different days.

So, it's a big nominating meeting. And if there are more than two candidates, then basically, it was like, yes, we're going to have an election. So, then they just start throwing massive banquets and feasts. They offer what treats, treating, like, obviously, the thing that they pick with papers is a treat.

And treating is probably the central element of an election campaign. It's basically big open-air street parties, sausage rolls, beer, pies. This would be illegal now. I haven't really thought that through.

The idea of going to a treat organized by Keir Starmer would film me with such gloom, Tom. I don't know. I go to the mall. Would you?

Spit roasting a hog. They wouldn't be, though, would they? Come on. The Labour party I'm going to be spit roasting a hog.

Rolling out barrels of beer. That's reform. That's Baraj's treat. Yeah.

Well, I think that might help him sweep the power. I mean, that's basically him posing with his beer, which he always does. Yeah, that's in the tradition, isn't it? That's a kind of vestige and a weird way of this.

And like, they'd be going on his log flumes and falling out of paddleboards. Again, the Liberal Democrat leader. I would be coming to that. But I just wonder whether this whole thing of you have a massive street party for people.

I mean, presumably that can't be legal anymore. People would do it. It would probably be considered bribery. I don't think you're allowed to give anything.

There were various bribery acts trying to get round all this. But what they would do is, for example, the parties would sell goods. So they'd say, well, we're not bribing anybody. We're actually selling things, but they'd sell them at massive discounts.

So that you would be getting stuff like a quarter of the price. So it kind of is bribery, but disguised. And they would go around. They'd give everybody in the town ribbons and cockades and all different colors.

There's no set colors. You would choose colors, you know, yourself, really. In the American Revolutionary Period, the colors associated with the American Revolution read a blue and buff. So Charles James Fox, who's very keen on the American Revolution, he wears blue and buff, but his opponent, so Cecil Ray wears green instead.

So it's just totally random. The election starts when you open the polls. So what this means is there's a big sort of hustings. So it's big and it's kind of open air, often the sheriff or the mayor or some local grandi reads the writ of election to a big crowd.

And then the way it works, let's say you want to vote Tom, you're in Wiltshire. Yeah. And I've bagged my pot or whatever it is you do. Yes, exactly.

You've walloped your pots and you're surrounded by your faggot voters. Yeah. So the way it works is you would have to go and you'd have to give your vote orally for everyone to hear. So everyone would know who I voted for.

Yeah. And you have two votes, except if you're in London, where you have four votes, or if you're in Abingdon, where you have one for reasons that are unclear. Right. Unclear.

So you have your two votes. Now, there were tickets. So people would say the wig men are, you know, our rimple and young Smith or whatever. Yeah.

And you could choose to go down the wig ticket or you could split your vote or you could say only one of those men is suitable to be voted for. So I will only use one vote. The other man is not worth my while. So I guess that explains the whole bribery thing because if everyone knows who you're voting for, then you can't just go around and you know, no, not at all.

Now, obviously the crowd are hooting and roaring and throwing things and stuff, throwing dead cats. Right. There's quite a lot of dead cat action, isn't there at this point? If you like dead cats, this is the podcast for you.

So you would come up in what was called a tally and a tally is maybe 10 or 20 people. There would be a tally captain who would wear the colors of your candidate. So you'd say, I'm a wig man and you'd get together with the wig tally. There'd be a tally captain and he would lead you.

He might have a banner. He might have a band and you'd all go together. You know, as a group, for safety, basically. Yeah.

So that's the paper saying the procession. They're all bunched together. Exactly. And that's why they have to sort the babies.

Now, you might think this is a tremendous day. You'd be wrong. It's not a tremendous day. It could be a tremendous month that this goes on for.

Great. So in some places where there are a lot of voters, this would just go on and on and on and they would almost sort of drag it out. In fact, dragging that so far in 1696, Parliament had to pass a law to say, you've got to get this done in dust in 40 days. And who's in control of it?

The local sheriff or mayor or whatever. The local authorities. And so they're supposedly a neutral, but they're not. Yeah, but obviously they're not neutral often as we will see.

So you've gone and you've done your voting at the end of the day, the candidates come out and address the crowd. You might think, since we're at the beginning, but no, do it at the end. They do it at the end of the day. They say, thanks for everyone who voted for me.

The rest of you, you know, there's always tomorrow. And then they would lead a procession, the rival candidates with all their bands and all their banners to a tavern. So they'd generally be staying in a tavern in the town. And each would have a different tavern as their headquarters.

And then they'd go into the tavern, drink what we had, and they'd come out and they'd address the crowd again from a window. There'd be lots of cheering and bands and presumably by this point, they're quite enebriated. Yeah, exactly so. Which always improves an election address.

So on the last day of the election, when everyone is voted, or when we got to the 40 days, the votes, they're all recorded in a book and they counted. And then the result is read out to this now gigantic crowd. And then this is a strange detail. The winning candidates would be put on chairs and carried through the town.

That's kind of fair enough. And there'd be great crowds following them. Some shouting of views, some saying brilliant. And quite risky, I'd have thought if there's dead cat throwing and you're on a chair.

Of course. Of course. You've got to be gutsy to do this. And you've got disappointed voters.

Right. So by now, everyone would be absolutely hammered. Yeah. So there's that as well.

So there'd be lots of fighting and they'd be before falling over. And then at the end, these other days, you'd be carried back to your tavern. And then the crowd would richly tear apart the chair. Presumably to hit each other with.

I don't know what the thing is, as you might expect from this description of how voting works, there is enormous scope for fighting and bad behavior. I mean, it's basically like the year eight, isn't it? Yeah. Loads of rival drunk fans.

Totally. England football fans would be in heaven with this. They could be singing all their songs, throwing stuff. It's a rich, carnivorous tradition.

That's exactly what it is. So there's loads of violence. There's loads of attacks on taverns, there's stones being hurled, there's people with flipping halberds, there's grenadiers, there's all this kind of stuff. Basically, lots of hijinks, Tom.

And I think what we could do in the second half, we're a bit of a match of the day, pod gas, aren't we? So we'll go with the edited highlights. I know you're gagging to hear about the election of 1698. Terrible scenes in Coventry in 1705, shocking business with the liberals in Chutnam in 1865.

So we'll go all the way through, give you the absolute, the tip top highlights. And Tom, we'll do all that after the break. See you in a minute. Welcome back to the rest is history.

So let's start at the beginning of party politics. We're in the 1690s, the reign of William III. People are talking now about weeks and Tories. So wigs, gosh, I have to explain, wigs, we often get asked this and it fills me with dread.

Well, because it evolves, doesn't it? It does. The bigs are kind of the Protestant succession, mercantile. They're back in the glorious revolution.

They're back in the glorious revolution, which has seen James II thrown out. So essentially suspending the natural laws of succession. Yes, because they love a Protestant above all. And they are softer on dissent on non-conformism on kind of low church religion, and they despise nothing more than a paper.

And Tories, they have a slight Jacobite tension to them. So I mean, even, you know, Central John, Dr. Johnson is a great Jacobite. King of the water, and all that.

The King of the water, yes. And there's a porter of this average church. Yeah. And Tories say, oh, the wigs are terrible.

Metropolitan, they're interested in Europe. They are do-gooders. They're out of touch with the bottom, the common sense of Old England. That's basically what it's always says of a wig.

Whereas the wigs say the Tories, they're clapped out red face or fools. I mean, the stereotype would be that you are a Tory and I'm a wig. It's not actually true, though, is it? I don't think.

No, it's not true. But that would be people's stereotype, I guess. This is the personas ton that we've confected for the podcast, isn't it? I don't want to let too much light in.

But yeah, I mean, a wig generally has a look of someone who eats too many vegetables. Yeah, absolutely. And a Tory has a look of someone who enjoys his beef. So to that extent, that's the dynamic of the podcast.

Right. Anyway, we've explained that in a very hamfisted way, but that's appropriate under the circumstances. So I'm a wig, you're a Tory. Just keep that vaguely in your head.

So 1698, there's an election. Basically, the wigs are in and they're defending their position against the Tories who were out. And out of 2696, 104 of them were contested, which is at one which is Westminster. Westminster had a very big electorate.

It had about 15, 20,000 people. That's the biggest of a lot, isn't it? Yeah. And because it's the fulcrum of power, it's got parliament in it.

Yes. That always adds an extra fissile. So parliament in it, it's very urban. And because it's so big, you can't manage it through bribery and patronage.

So it's always contested. Now, traditionally, what would happen is the rival groups of political enthusiasts would assemble on what was called Tuttle Fields or Tottil Fields, which is a big open-passure ground, and they would just have a massive fight. That's how it would work. I don't just think that would be brilliant.

I mean, you could just put it on Sky Sports. Yeah, exactly. Scream it live. So you have two candidates who are wigs and the selection Charles Montegu and James Vernon and opposing them, of course, as a man with the ultimate kind of Tory stroke country name, which is Henry Doncicole's Baronet.

Can I just ask? They're two wigs. They're not competing against each other. They're kind of running on a joint ticket, are they?

Yeah. Remember, every seat has two MPs. Yeah. So they basically want to squeeze out Sir Henry Doncole Baronets.

Is he the only Tory? Yes, he's the only guy. I think he's the only Tory running in that selection. And in fact, their party political allegiances are so fluid.

So like a couple of years later, he's a wig or something. It's just bonkers. Yeah. He arrives with all his skies.

Some of them are like equipped to like a little knife or a cudgel or something. I mean, a Tory, you know, they can't teach him fishing. Yeah, absolutely. But he's behind the times.

Vernon a month ago, much more modern because they arrive with, and I quote, a troop of several thousand horsemen. And they charge Sir Henry doesn't cults men and drive them. And I quote, this is Vernon himself said the wig, you know, not so much or too good. He said, my men ran down cults men at a strange rate and cudgel them into dishes full of water.

And he was unrepentants about this James Vernon. He said cults supporters are, and I quote, the very scum of the town, Victor as porters and chairmen. So many basically carry on it. So down to that.

Yeah, fair enough. So it's very like people throwing milk at her. No, it's a far out. Well, actually, so after this, Henry doesn't call Baronette, he lost.

He finished 600 votes behind James Vernon, 800 votes behind Charles Montague. And he petitioned Parliament to have the result cancelled. He said they had gone too far. One of his men had died from wounds and fixed a junior cavalry charge.

He said that Vernon and Montague had broken the rules, the accepted rules, by employing off duty grenadiers against his men, and that he himself had been threatened with pistols. I love it that there are rules that say you can't deploy off duty grenadiers. Yeah, well, Parliament said no. There's no such rule.

Oh, right. This is all completely acceptable for a bar mentioning campaign. So his petition was thrown out, but it actually wasn't the best thing that happened in 1698, because there are even more exciting things in Norfolk. So here, one of the MPs has been called to Henry Hobart another Baronette.

He's a week. He was knighted by Charles the second when he was 13, very impressive. But he loses his seat in 1698. So two toys, because two toys returned from Norfolk and so Henry Hobart is absolutely furious.

And he says, I know who's to blame. It's basically a guy who lives down the road, another landowner called Oliver Laniv. He's had died in the world tour. He spends all his time hunting and fishing.

And Hobart has convinced that Laniv has been spreading rumours that he's a coward, specifically that he behaved in the cowardly manner of the battle of the boin. And he says, this is absolutely disgrace. This is the only reason I lost this seat is because this Laniv has been spreading his rumours. Laniv says, I've never told anybody these things about you.

But Hobart won't accept it and challenge this into a duel because he's so upset at losing his seat and they're thinking that people are calling him a coward. So you challenge someone to a duel to prove your your manhood. Yeah, your manhood. So for some obscure reason, they fight on a heath midway between their two houses, but with no seconds.

I read that there was a servant girl hiding in the bush who was the only person to observe this. I don't know why she was hiding in the bush. But anyway, Hobart is a much more accomplished swordsman. So he clearly thinks easy win.

And he's so fast he strikes first, but his sword gets tangled in Laniv's coat and Laniv very unsentimently immediately just runs him through in the stomach. And Hobart dies, so it's lost his seat and his life. And Laniv fled to Holland and then he returned after two years and he was acquitted. The jury acquited him because they said he's a tremendous fellow.

I think that reflects well on the jury. That's the last duel in Norfolk history Tom and it's said, it is said that if you visit the heath then sometimes at night you can hear ghostly swords clashing in the darkness and perhaps see the servant girl hiding in the bush. Perhaps you can. That's 1698.

Would you like to hear about 1705? Yeah, I'd have to. So 1705, the sort of party politics is only seven years on but it's becoming a tiny bit more recognizable. It's becoming a little bit more predictable.

It's all about kind of the Tories say the church in London is in danger from radicals and dissenters. The wigs say, oh, there's always a bunch of Catholics terrible scenes. So at this point it's not about tax. Well, it's probably about the war of the Spanish succession raising taxes for the war or of that kind of thing.

Oh, so it is still about tax? Yeah, so tax is always kind of lurking there. Tax and religion. Tax and culture wars.

Culture wars and tax. So when people say, oh, these terrible cultures were a terrible distraction from real things. That's torsion rubbish. Culture wars have always been an absolute centre.

So that kind of high church low church thing, it absolutely feeds into the culture today. Totally does. Yeah, absolutely. It's enduring.

So why not? Let's go to Coventry. Yeah, love Coventry. Coventry is a big and bustling place in 1705.

It's a big trading city and it's an absolute hotbed of religious dissent. So the politics of the town is dominated by Presbyterians, not churchmen and as a result of that, it is a real weak stronghold. It's not a place for a Tory, not a place for a Tory or so you would think, because in the run up to this election, which is that summer, there are weeks and weeks of clashes between rival, Wig and Tory mobs. And I think because they are so out done in the town, it's always just think, you know, we've got to do something special here.

So there's going to be a three-day election in Coventry and the night before it kicks off, hundreds of Tory supporters pour into the town armed with halberds. That's very retro. Very retro. Exactly.

Well, that's always quite retro, aren't they, I suppose. Yeah. Mary England, all that stuff. They march into the town and they seize the Guildhall.

There's about 700 of them. And because they control the Guildhall, they've basically seized it from the authorities. So they can run the election. They can run the election, which they do.

So as I read, those favouring the Tory candidates were admitted unhindered, but they weren't, I quote, ready to eat anybody offering themselves for the wigs. So basically, all the people who say that Tory vote is fine. And if you're a Wig, then you will be, it's a very strange thing. You'll be, quote, hoarse.

There's carried on men's shoulders upon cowel staff and dragged upon the ground. So I've discovered what that means. That means you'd be sort of tied to a stick, like a big stick, and you'd be carried between two men, like a captured animal. Yeah, like a trust animal, and then they're draggy on the ground.

That's very Tory, isn't it? Hunters would do that. Exactly. Now, this was seen as going too far, because actually two Tory candidates unsurprisingly won, but there was a massive kind of case comes for Parliament.

And in 1707, two years later, the election was declared void, and the wigs went. So there are some standards. Of dual is fine, Grenadiers and cavalry charges are fine, the use of Halberds. Halberds is not.

Halberds is absolutely not fine, which I suppose, let's prove the darkest Tory's decisions, the England's going to the dogs. Totally. Yeah. And that the good old traditions are being phased out by the cumulus pricks.

Yeah, nanny state pricks. Nanny state pricks. That's exactly what it is. So now we could go to the whole 18th century like this, and we'd be here till, you know, the crack of doom.

Let's fast forward a bit to the 19th century. So there's still a fair bit of violence, but it's slightly less more than Halberd and a bit more throwing dogs and bats, I think, as fair to say, Tom. So this is the paper with paper zero. This is the paper with paper zero.

So basically, whenever you turned out as an MP, if you was a contested election, people would throw at you stinking fish, dead dogs, cats and rats, accounts of Sussex, 1820 bombarded with the rotten eggs and dead cats of Chichester, there's tons of dead cats in kind of Regency, England, early Victorian, England. So what would you rather have thrown at you a dead cat or rotten eggs? I think I'd take the egg. I'm just imagining the feel of a dead cat on my face as it like impacted.

I think that's horrible. It's actually because of the chills to think of it, Tom. This is the kind of analysis you get on other podcasts. No way.

No way. It's all those politics shows have been riding high during the election campaign, but they're not debating the issues that matter. No. Where's the dead dogs?

Where's the cats? Yeah. Where's the Bristol election of 1830? Where indeed, Dominic, tell us about the rest of the lecture of 1830.

So this is Hilary Berlop again and Bristol, slave trade, obviously, a big issue and abolitionism, a huge issue. But here you get some excellent fighting between rival wigs. So within the wigs themselves, if there's lots of people competing and the party organization is quite weak, you can have rival candidates from the same party, from the same movement for the same seats effectively. So like the Tories today, Dominic.

That's always today, very good, very good. So here we've got two guys, two wigs fighting for one slot, Edward Prothero and James Bailey. Edward Prothero is a massive do-gooder, Tom. He supports votes for Catholics and he supports the abolition of slavery.

Now James Bailey is also a wig, so a bit of a do-gooder, but he's more moderate, and actually his opponents save him. Oh, he's just pretending to hate slavery. By moderate, he's not in favor of abolishing a slave trade, not worth it. No, he is, but more gradually.

He's a graduateist. His key is to honor his brother, as I suppose, as I said to say, and his opponents save him. He's just a lackie of the West India interests. Actually, now, confusingly, this is very Labour party.

Bailey, the moderate says of Prothero, he pretends to abhor slavery to pick the pockets of Quakers and other enthusiasts. And he also says, Prothero and all these Quakers, these sort of wig momentum, they're factually secret invested in a Brazilian gold mine that depends on slaves. So they are absolute latte sipping. Yeah, this is all very familiar.

Guardian reading hypocrites. It's very like the debate about Bailey Gifford. It is, totally it is. All the writers who oppose Bailey Gifford who have their books on Amazon.

Yeah, that's an investment company that was sponsoring book festivals. It was basically driven out of the world, was sponsoring book festivals by agitated, lefty writers, novelists. Exactly. So these two guys, they had this massive violence between their supporters.

When Bailey, the gradualist enters Bristol, he has his procession into Bristol. There's a huge group of men and boys on horseback, and I quote, in the state of intoxication, many of them aren't the bludgens who attack his his procession. So it's not all kind of organic shoes and tofu. No, this is their hard edge.

I mean, no halberds, but the next best thing. So he comes out of his pub, which is the rumour to address the crowd. That's a great name for a pub. People hiss him, they charge his supporters.

And in revenge, his supporters, and I quote, sailors and ships, carpenters and a dreadful state of infuriation and intoxication. Also under bludgens, they attack the other blokes pub. There's massive fighting and then 27 people had to be taken to the infirmary. The first day of polling, a prothero, the abolitionist, he comes out of his pub to address the crowd.

There's a hail of mist, somebody hits him on the head with a ladder. It's an oak ladder, I read. An oak ladder, an oak ladder, it's like a ship's ladder, I presume. The oak ladder of England.

And I'm assuming this is something to do with, I mean, don't forget there'll be a lot of people in those crowds who would be in favour of slavery because they basically think it's their livelihood, who are sporting the West India interest. So I'm wondering whether it's a ship's ladder and there's some sort of symbolism that they've done it deliberately. So anyway, prothero lost by 500 votes. So that's the more radical abolitionist and the moderate one.

But a year later, there was another election in 1831. The two guys who'd fought so bitterly were the only candidates and stood unopposed and there was no contest, no fighting, nothing. Like they'd made up or something or done a deal. I mean, that's the strange thing about it, is that it's almost unknowable, I guess.

It all seems so random and disorganized. I mean, there must be people who are sort of pulling the strings in some way, like issuing oak ladders and dead cats. But we don't really get much of a sense of them until later on. So let's move into the Victorian period.

Obviously, the big story here is the expansion of the franchise. So you mentioned the Great Reform Act. Thanks to the Great Reform Act of 1832, about 650,000 people can vote. There's another reform act in 1867 that takes it to 2 million and then in 1884 to about 6 million voters.

That's still no women and a bare majority of men. So about 60% of men in Britain can vote and 40% can't because they don't have a property. Now, the other big thing, in 1872, there was a thing called the ballot act, which brought in secret ballots. So that's the whole thing you get behind the curtain.

Nobody knows what you're voting. I'd always thought of that as a pretty fundamental principle of British democracy. I'm amazed at it. It was so late being brought in.

Yeah. And I think you and I can say this, Tom, obviously, wouldn't on these politics podcasts. That's the moment we're all in one for Britain, isn't it? Yeah.

I mean, the 1870s is probably also the point where the United States and Germany start to catch up with us economically. And I think that's no coincidence, terrible times. Yeah. The moment people started voting, you know, out of shame, I think that's the moment we lost Apple City or Seoul.

Yeah, but the anti-woke take would be that it's 1832 and the widening of the franchise abolition of rotten boroughs. Yeah, that actually they should have heated the 15th century petition that said too many people are voting. That was where it was at. Yeah, bring back the pot banging.

Yeah. So with expansion of the franchise and then it's on with secret ballots and obviously the strength of party organizations and a general sense of kind of glad-sonian and rectitude. The violence starts to decline. But happily for us, it does not end.

So I've got three, fun examples of Victorian larks. So one comes from the Spartan of Cheltenham, 1865, which is very kind of prim and proper. Very, very much proper. Exactly.

Makes the so incongruous. So in 1865, Lord Palmerston's Liberals beat the other Dabies, conservatives, and it was generally seen as a very dull election, basically election dominated by corruption. But this is the great shining exception. And this is from a brilliant project done at Durham University called the Electoral Violence Project, which is all about Victorian electoral violence.

It records 3000 incidents across the whole of Victorian period. Some of them are just vandalism and some of them are proper riots, they're 96 deaths. I so approve of scholars doing this. Yeah, this is good use of taxpayers' money.

It really is. This is a genuinely good use, I think, I applaud this project. So on the 12th of July in Cheltenham, 1865, a laborer called William Lyons, he's walking down the street. He's been working as a messenger for the Liberal candidates.

He's called Colonel Barkley. And he and this other volunteer are walking down the street. And they pass a band. And the band is playing a Scottish ballad called the Bonnets of Blue.

And Lyons, this guy, is very enthusiastic about the Liberals. You know, he can't go enough for Liberals. The Liberal colour is yellow. So he starts singing and he sings, rather than the Bonnets of Yellow.

You know, and it's jolly Liberal way. He loves the yellow. He loves the Liberals of his happy with life. And passing him is a chemist called John Glass, John Thomas Glass, who's a very, very keen Conservative.

And he hears this blake singing this. And he comes over and I quote, interferes with him. I don't know what that means, but something happens. They have an argument and Lyons is still very jolly.

It's good humour to answer. Yeah, Lyons says, listen, I love the Liberals. I've worked really hard for them today. And he finishes, he says, you know, Colonel Barkley forever.